Above: Joe Sikoryak, me, Ed Dennis and “the Godfather,” Craig Spaulding of Screen Archives, probably 15 years ago.
I woke up this morning to find that more than one person had forwarded me a Washington Post article (behind a paywall).
The headline: “A gay couple ran a rural restaurant in peace. Then new neighbors arrived.”
And immediately I thought, “Hey, this must be my friends!”
Anybody into soundtracks knows Craig Spaulding at Screen Archives. They have been our distributor for FSM CDs for years.
Craig is the passionate film music lover. His husband, William Waybourn, is the business guy. I’ve worked closely with them for years and they’ve always bent over backwards to help the film music community—and me, in particular.
I’ve gone to stay with them several times in rural Virginia where I always notice, “Hey, there are a lot of churches around here.”
So it’s a very conservative place, but changing and growing, especially in proximity to Washington, D.C.
In recent years, William and Craig have opened or acquired a bunch of local businesses, one of them being the Front Porch Market and Grill in The Plains, Virginia.
If you can’t or don’t want to read the Post article, I’ll summarize:
You won’t be shocked to learn that the market flies a pride flag and, during Covid, enforced masking restrictions (per the law).
Next door is a conservative family, the Washers, who run a financial services company.
So yeah...what started out as some political differences of opinion, and petty neighbor stuff (“your dumpster smells”) is now all-out legal warfare threatening to turn the town apart.
I know I have some conservative readers, which is fine! William and Craig are my friends so obviously I will support them.
But let me just say: I don’t know any of my conservative friends who would throw a dead rat on their neighbor’s porch.
So the moral of the story is something I’ve known forever...you just can’t trust those hate-filled straights!
But the Washers clearly did not know what they were getting into in picking this fight.
William Waybourn has been at the forefront of fighting for LBGT rights since the 1980s—and tremendously successful. The University of North Texas did an oral history with him!
So it’s like muggers try to take some old guy, only to discover he’s a ninja assassin. Judo CHOP!
In all seriousness...one of the sad realities of our wonderful free society is that, if anybody is determined and crazy and well-financed enough, they can make life a living hell for anybody else.
The article closes by noting that William and Craig put the restaurant up for sale earlier this year.
So it’s just sad and I’m very sorry for my friends.
I will post this article but I dread the inevitable comment by somebody with Bible verses. Ugh—can you please, just, not?
When I say I have conservative friends—I really do. I have lifelong right-leaning friends and I’m on their social media and I don’t really care who is pissed off about taxes or thinks Biden sucks or whatever.
We know we’re friends, and stuff that’s divisive, we just don’t talk about.
But it’s 2023 and if you have a problem with gay people, here is an important article you should read.